Tony Blair: Saddam Ouster Right, Even Without WMDs

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says it would have been right to remove Saddam Hussein from power even without evidence that the deposed Iraqi leader had weapons of mass destruction.

Blair was a strong supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, now the subject of an inquiry in the U.K., where the war was deeply unpopular. His comments came in an interview with the BBC to be broadcast Dec. 13.

"I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat," Blair told interviewer Fern Britton in response to a question about whether he would have joined in the U.S.-led invasion if he'd known Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, according to a transcript released Saturday by the state broadcaster.

Blair said that the threat Saddam posed to the region was uppermost in his mind and the possibility that Iraq had powerful weapons was only one factor behind his decision.

Opposition Conservative MP Richard Ottoway, a member of the legislature's Intelligence and Security Committee, called the former prime minister's comments a "cynical ploy to soften up public opinion" ahead of his appearance at the Iraq inquiry, which is expected early next year.

The inquiry heard testimony earlier this week from John Sawers, head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service, that Blair had discussions two years before the 2003 invasion on how to undermine Saddam's regime politically.